ECCM18 - 18 th European Conference on Composite Materials Athens, Greece, 24-28 th June 2018 1 Sotirios Grammatikos*, Spyros Tsampas, Jocke Petterson, Tang Luping, Ingemar Löfgren RECYCLING AND RE-PURPOSING DECOMMISIONED CONSTRUCTION POLYMER COMPOSITES FOR CONSTRUCTION APPLICATIONS Sotirios Grammatikos 1,* , Spyros Tsampas 2 , Jocke Petterson 3 , Tang Luping 4 , Ingemar Löfgren 5 1 Department of Manufacturing and Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Email: sotirios.grammatikos@ntnu.no, Web Page: https://www.ntnu.no 2 R&T Centre, GKN Aerospace Engine Systems, Sweden Email: spyros.tsampas@gknaerospace.com, Web Page: https://www.gkn.com/ 3 Material Technologies, Swerea SICOMP AB, Sweden Email: Jocke.Pettersson@swerea.se, Web Page: https://www.swerea.se/sicomp 4 Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden Email: tang.luping@chalmers.se, Web Page: https://www.chalmers.se/ 5 Thomas Concrete Group AB, Sweden Email: ingemar.lofgren@thomasconcretegroup.com, Web Page: http://www.thomasbetong.se/ Keywords: glass fibre reinforced polymers, recycling, repurpose, mechanical performance, cementitious mortar Abstract Fibre reinforced polymer composites (FRPs) are being increasingly used in aerospace and automotive applications due to their high specific mechanical properties. The construction industry has also started taking advantage of the potential of FRPs for both structural and non-structural purposes. The result of this remarkable absorption of FRPs within the worldwide production market, has led to an immense increase of decommissioned thermoset-matrix components. Nowadays, the majority of the decommissioned FRP components are recovered energy-wise through incineration or simply discarded in landfills around the globe. Within the framework of this paper, we present a solution for the extension of the service life of decommissioned FRP components. Decommissioned electrical insulation FRP pipes were granulated and incorporated as fillers within both cementitious and polymer matrix composites. The effect of FRP granulates on the mechanical performance of cementitious and polymer matrix composites is examined to determine the maximum granulate-filler fraction that can be recycled without compromising the mechanical performance and manufacturing process. 1. Introduction The majority of fibre-reinforced composites used in industries such as aeronautics, energy and transportation once they reach their out-of-service life, end up in landfill or are being used for energy production mainly via incineration (according to The Incineration of Waste Directive, 2000/76/EC) [1]. In particular, every year in Europe more than 60 000 tonnes of composite waste is produced of which most ends up in landfill around Europe or other non-EU countries (EC Waste shipment regulations (259/93/EEC)) [2]. Although incineration and disposal to landfill are very detrimental for the environment, the low cost of glass fibres and lack of commercially viable industrial recycling methods make these solutions inevitable. Recently, the use of commercially manufactured fibre-reinforced composites in concrete materials has been studied by a number of researchers as a reinforcement phase in concrete [3-6]. In